50 years ago: Remembering the Flomaton Old-growth Longleaf Tract

Alabama's last old growth longleaf, 1963. Click to enlarge.

I recently found this photo in an old file drawer, and I don't think it has been digitized before. The photographer is not given. Written in pencil on the back is "Hauss Park Old Growth Longleaf near Flomaton, AL  1963." This once-spectacular 60-acre remnant of Alabama's forest history is gone forever. In 2008 the tract was divested by the Birmingham-based forest management company that owned it to an adjacent landowner who then clear-cut it. The day I found out, I contacted a friend in the company who assured me they contacted various potential conservation buyers, organizations, and individuals to see if they had an interest in buying the property, but I know many in the conservation community were taken by complete surprise when it was cut. It could have and should have been saved. Below is a description, taken from an Alabama Forestry Commission web page that is no longer accessible:

The 60-acre area was well known, well researched, and well used. What made this forest biologically unique is that it was well over 3 centuries old and was among the last parcel of land of its kind in the world (only a few other virgin longleaf pine stands remain across 9 southern states; and now no more of its kind in Alabama). To put it another way, this one forest was over 100 years old before Alabama became a state in 1819.

The original owner of the tract in the early 1900's was Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company and the owner set it aside on purpose (having cut everything else around it). Local folklore indicates this owner called it the "hell freezes over area"; which were the conditions under which he would have cut it. Since then, the property has changed hands several times; all to large timber companies. Due to its rarity, these forestry companies continued to preserve the location as natural area significant to Alabama and the Southeast. In 1963, the National Society of American Foresters (SAF) designated it as E. A. Hauss Old Growth Longleaf Natural Area. The SAF's definition of a natural area is "a tract of land set aside to preserve permanently in unmodified condition a representative unit of virgin growth of a major forest type, with the preservation primarily for scientific and educational purposes". The area was used extensively by local 4-H clubs, civic groups, etc. In 1998 when the adjacent state highway was widened, Champion International offered the trees removed from the ROW to Colonial Williamsburg to restore historic buildings due to the scarcity of old growth longleaf pine timbers. Also, Auburn University School of Forestry used the area for over a decade to study the conditions of longleaf pine forests in their most primal state. It was later renamed the Flomaton Natural Area.

A wildfire in 1993 burned only 5 acres, but due to the heavy duff accumulation from decades of fire suppression, all of the old trees that were burned died due to root damage, including one that was 345 years old. The Auburn University School of Forestry (spearheaded by John Kush) made great progress in reintroducing fire to the stand and restoring some of the original groundcover. In 2004 Hurricane Ivan brought down many of the giants. But it remained a site of tremendous ecological, educational, recreational, and research value.

Without the much-needed protection of a conservation easement, greed and ignorance prevailed in the end, as so often happens. The current view below is looking eastward from the nearby church. The stand began at the road near the bottom of the photo by the lone tree and extended all the way to the distant treeline.

Blake Shelton, Turtle Killer?

Shelton is an entertainer known for supporting conservation (at least the hunting and fishing kind) in his home state of Oklahoma. He has over a million Twitter followers and is admired by young people across the country. And this is the example he chose to set yesterday. His arrogance after being called on it is disgusting. He needs to publicly apologize, and a hefty donation to Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) and/or or other turtle conservation groups wouldn't hurt. Some of his fans are taking his side, but most seem shocked. Here are some of the reply (in bold) comments from Shelton:

"@bjkingape: That turtle's life meant something- was your tweet a bad joke? Why would you be so cruel to a living being?” Shut up...

Yes. He just told a fan to shut up.

"@ohnoelizabeth: So you mean it's okay to kill innocent animals just because you donated money?” Sweety.. The adults are talking right now..

Hey @turtlefeed.. I solely have raised over a million dollars in animal rescue/conservation alone... How much have you raised? Oh. Ok. Next!

"@MaxTerrepene: My family has raised more than a million for conservation and we don't kill wildlife. Beat that one!” I do. And eat them.

What an ass. Boycott Shelton's records, his appearances (including NBC's The Voice), and his sponsors. This guy's 15 minutes are about up.


Update:  Buzzfeed just posted good coverage of this--with way more tweets than I was able to find--here.  His Facebook page is heating up too.

Back in the saddle...

Flattened musk turtle, Sternotherus depressus

It's been a year and 4 days since I last blogged. Facebook has taken the place of blogging to some degree, but I'm going to try to revive this old blog. Julia Zickefoose, whose blog is a favorite of mine, recently lamented in this interview "the decline of blogging in favor of the more immediate (and infinitely more shallow) frisson of social networking. I’m convinced that if I didn't share every blog post on Facebook, nobody would read my blog anymore."

It's the beginning of serious field season for me. I'm trapping flattened musk turtles at a concrete bridge removal site on Brushy Creek in Bankhead National Forest to get them out of harm's way before tomorrow's scheduled demolition. It's also red-cockaded woodpecker nesting time, and I need to be about three other places at once to monitor nests. On top of that, I'm preparing final maps and assimilating publication-quality images from numerous sources for two volumes that will update Bob Mount's The Reptiles and Amphibians of Alabama. Oh, and co-editing a natural communities book.  More on all that later.

Finally, check out Dave Steen's excellent blog over at Living Alongside Wildlife.  It's been a while since I actually went there (sorry Dave!), but I just did and I like what he's done with the place. 

City of Opp Now Paying Snake Bounty?

The City of Opp's Rattlesnake Rodeo website doesn't have much useful information on the eastern diamondback rattlesnake (it doesn't even mention the species by name), but it does offer sound advice regarding what to do if you encounter one: "avoid contact with rattlesnakes by remaining observant and not approaching the animals." Despite that, the city has just announced a new policy of paying the general public a bounty of $8 per foot for eastern diamondback rattlesnakes over 2 feet long, or $100 for any snake over 5 feet long. Mayor H.D. Edgar is quoted saying, "We've been paying our hunters in the past, but a lot of them have quit. We've got to have a new source of snakes for the snake shows, so everyone thought this would be a good idea to get the public involved once again." I wonder if "everyone" included the city attorney, because it would seem that the city is setting itself up for a huge liability exposure. And the city needs rattlesnakes for what, exactly? Two things only: to be put on display and to be "raced." The snakes are actually playing less and less of a role in this popular annual event. Of course they don't need wild-caught rattlesnakes to have a buck-dance contest, a car race, or a concert. A few captive snakes could be brought out each year for display and attendance would not suffer.

For decades the standard snake hunting technique was to introduce gasoline fumes into gopher tortoise burrows to drive out rattlesnakes. This effective but extremely harmful practice is now illegal in Alabama. Rodeo promoters claim this is no longer done, but they don't say how they police themselves. And now the city has opened the field up to anyone, without cautioning against gassing burrows. It's going to be happening, no question.

A growing number of people are calling for this event to change. At the Rodeo, children are seeing large numbers of a declining species of native wildlife being rounded up, mistreated, and slaughtered (behind the scenes; they used to chop off heads in public but no longer) for no reason other than it's a snake. This is not how to instill a respect for nature in the next generation. Other towns that had snake rodeos, such as Fitzgerald, Georgia and San Antonio Florida, have successfully shifted the emphasis of their event away from the wild snake roundup. At the San Antonio Rattlesnake Festival, education presentations feature snakes that are not abused or harassed, the crowd is entertained, and children go home with a new respect for wildlife. That event draws 30,000 visitors and raises thousands of dollars for local nonprofits.

Opp City Planner Don Childre has long defended the wild snake hunt by claiming the snakes are still as common as ever. His credibility went out the window, however, when he was quoted in yesterday's Opp News falsely stating that rattlesnakes bear young several times a year for an annual average of 100 young! In fact, diamondbacks bear young once in the late summer, with an average litter of about a dozen young. Then he falsely equates the regulated harvest of game species to the unregulated take of rattlesnakes: "We hunt [gray squirrels and whitetail deer] and no one says anything, but they make a lot of noise about snake hunting for some reason." See what he did there? Using that logic, I suppose he'd say we can also have unregulated take on sea turtles, because one female can produce over 500 hatchlings in a year.

Eastern diamondbacks are declining primarily due to habitat degradation, not snake roundups, but the latter is not helping. Their environmental impact has been documented by Dr. D. Bruce Means of Florida State University and the Coastal Plains Institute here (PDF).

It's either time for the State of Alabama to step up and regulate the take of rattlesnakes for such purposes, or for Opp to change its annual event to a wildlife appreciation festival. By doing so they would continue to bring in revenue to the local economy while educating young people and conserving the diversity of nature that we are so fortunate to have in this part of the country.

Logging Lake Guntersville State Park

Loading large hardwood logs, Lake Guntersville State Park, September 16, 2010

On September 16, 2010 I visited Lake Guntersville State Park in Marshall County, Alabama to see firsthand the logging and herbiciding that I'd been told was taking place on the park's mixed hardwood slopes. I understand a similar logging project has recently been completed at Cathedral Caverns State Park as well. The people of Alabama perceive their state parks as special places deserving of and afforded the highest protections, but unfortunately this is not what they receive. The Department of Conservation operates several of its parks primarily as resorts and convention centers, and revenues from these help subsidize the smaller parks. At Guntersville, for example, ADCNR recently spent $26 million on lodge and golf course renovations. By comparison, natural resource stewardship is a lot farther down the priority list.

According to ADCNR's own State Wildlife Action Plan (page 63), a high priority conservation action is for managers of mesic hardwood forests "to favor mature and old-growth hardwood stands (because these are most often in shortest supply on a landscape scale)." This plan evidently was not consulted in the management decisions at Guntersville and Cathedral Caverns.

In a recent interview with a local newspaper, the State Parks Division's forester said, "The work we're doing will create a park full of big, mature trees with open areas underneath that provide more habitat for more wildlife and more opportunities for visitors to see the wildlife." That's a forester talking, not a biologist. I rather doubt wildflowers, ferns, mushrooms, warblers, salamanders, and box turtles are the kind of wildlife he's speaking of. I know what he's saying--you really can get bigger trees faster if you thin some of them out. But who decides which species to shift the tree community composition toward? And has the cost of disturbance been fully weighed? Through soil disturbance you make the forest highly vulnerable to noxious invasive species, such as Nepalese browntop and Chinese privet, which are already established in portions of the park.

Careful cutting of trees in a park is often necessary to remove invasive species, maintain fire lanes, reduce hazards to hikers/campers, etc. But what I saw was a large-scale and in my opinion misguided removal of oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, large and small. Part of the justification behind this, as a contact in Parks has told me, was that there was a desire to create an open forest experience that was more aesthetically pleasing to the park visitor. I was assured that this was not economically-driven, and that the cost of the specialized low impact equipment, cut-to-length logging practices, mulching, and herbicides would make this at best a break-even deal for ADCNR. I guess at least the loggers are making a profit.

This is what ADCNR State Parks is "improving." Blue paint and ribbons indicate trees to be cut. The flagged tree in the right background is a 16" diameter white oak.

This area has already been logged through, and a log is being transported to one of many cleared loading decks.

Another "thinned" and mulched area.

To achieve this, however, heavy machinery has crisscrossed much of the forest floor, resulting in untold impacts to soils, plants, and ground-dwelling animals. No pre-logging inventory of sensitive plants or natural communities was conducted. No such inventory has ever been conducted in the park, although the state can find millions to upgrade its infrastructure. [9/22 edit: Dan Spaulding's 1995 JSU thesis was on the flora of the park, and 30 imperiled or critically imperiled species were reported, but few specific locations are mapped.] New forest roads were gouged into the slopes, decreasing the size of roadless areas and further fragmenting the forest. Contract loggers were allowed to work unsupervised, with no park personnel present, on an "operator-select" basis, meaning some of the most mature and economically valuable trees are being removed. Large portions of the park have been all but sanitized, with dead standing trees (snags) removed, along with naturally fallen trees. The woods have been further "cleaned up" following the logging, with virtually all woody debris mulched by yet another heavy machine. My contact in the Parks Division tells me that that this was done in the name of aesthetics, safety, wildlife, and forest health.

In addition to the logging is herbiciding of vegetation that might obscure a motorists' view into the unnaturally thinned forest. I was stunned to see perennial and annual wildflowers and shrubs dead for up to 50 feet out into the woods while the opposite shoulder of the road had thriving stands of the exotic invasive Chinese privet, the only plant in sight that actually needed killing.

A large stand of herbicide-sprayed fall-flowering Silphium between the road and the golf course. The logic here seems to be that visitors would rather look at a golf course than native wildflowers.

The invasive privet across the road apparently was not sprayed because no visibility into the woods would be gained due to the slope.

This new logging road cuts deep into what had been a mostly unfragmented block of forest.

The upslope part of the road cut is about three feet deep.

It leads to this.

This Facebook group has been set up by concerned citizens, and contains more photographs and links.

I was told yesterday by my contact in the Parks Division that due to the public outcry, the logging has been stopped, at least temporarily, and whether it continues will be up to Representative Jeff McLaughlin (27th District) and others of the legislative delegation. If you find this kind of management of your parks objectionable, below are some people who may need to hear from you.

Jeff McLaughlin, Representative, 27th District
jeff@mcedlaw.com

Barnett Lawley, ADCNR Commissioner
dcnr.commissioner@dcnr.alabama.gov

Mark Easterwood, ADCNR State Parks Director
Mark.Easterwood@dcnr.alabama.gov

Addendum, 9/19/10
Here is my email to the gentlemen above:

Commissioner Lawley, Mr. Easterwood, and Representative McLaughlin:

The people of Alabama perceive their parks as special places deserving of and afforded the highest protections, but unfortunately this is not always the case. I recently visited Lake Guntersville State Park and was greatly disappointed by the impacts of the logging, new road construction, and excessive herbiciding that has unfortunately been permitted to occur. Detailed comments and photos are posted at my blog here. I am not necessarily saying that some vegetation management is not needed, but now that these practices are at least temporarily on hold, I urge you to enact a policy of no logging or herbiciding of native vegetation in any state park prior to 1.) development and multi-agency/stakeholder approval of a comprehensive plan for all State Parks, similar to the statewide Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (Wildlife Action Plan) developed in 2005 by the Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries and the statewide Forest Assessment and Resource Strategy developed this year by the Alabama Forestry Commission, and 2.) a thorough inventory of each park’s biological diversity. Spending $26 million on infrastructure and virtually nothing on inventorying the park’s natural treasures before logging it simply makes no sense. In the words of Aldo Leopold, to keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Please take a moment to look at one or two of these detailed park management plans developed by Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Park Planning. If Alabama’s State Parks have anything similar, other than this one (not available through ADCNR’s website) for Oak Mountain, I am unaware of it, but the need is great. If I may be of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to call on me.

Respectfully,

Mark Bailey
Conservation Biologist
Conservation Southeast, Inc.
Andalusia, AL

"I Smell Rattlesnake"

Politicians love the Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo. I first saw Richard Shelby 24 years ago right there at Channel-Lee Stadium when he was campaigning for the Senate. This year gubernatorial candidate Robert Bentley brought a camera crew, which is the only reason I'm posting this. It's a glimpse into what happens there.



It's time the folks at Opp moved beyond this. There's no reason they can't have an annual rattlesnake-themed festival, but sensational exploitation is no way to instill a conservation ethic in youngsters.

A Week to Remember

Breeding male Notropis chrosomus, Monroe County, AL

There's been a colorful creature theme this week. In the past seven days I've seen red-cockaded woodpeckers in Coosa County, Red Hills salamanders in Monroe County, and a southern red salamander in Covington County. I was present for the release of 18 eastern indigo snakes in Conecuh National Forest. I watched male rainbow shiners in peak breeding colors in Monroe County, at the exact spot I featured in July 2009.

Two events made the week particularly memorable. The first was the reintroduction of the indigo snakes last Wednesday. You can read more on that here and Dave Steen's account is here. Gator Pond is only a couple of miles from the release site, and it's exciting to think that someday we might actually see an indigo snake there. Good luck to Jimmy Stiles as he tries to radio-track 18 snakes that potentially could range for miles!

Jimmy Stiles

It's hard to top indigo snakes, but Friday was the 50th anniversary of the June 18 1960 discovery of the Red Hills salamander, Phaeognathus hubrichti. Several months ago JJ Apodaca and I started making plans to do something to commemorate the occasion, and we envisioned maybe seven or eight die-hard Phaeognathus biologists making the effort to show up. To our astonishment and delight, a group of about 40 people turned out for the event, and following a lunch and indoor social nearby, we all piled into vehicles and drove through a severe thunderstorm to the type locality off Highway 31 near McKenzie. As the rain subsided, we toasted the likes of Leslie Hubricht, Richard Highton, Barry Valentine, and Ronald Brandon. Two of Valentine's students who participated in the 1963 "rediscovery" of the species, Steve Tilley and David Dennis, were there, as were Auburn's Bob Mount (my old major prof) and his students Ralph "PeeWee" Jordan and Terry Schwaner, both of whom did extensive field work and research on the salamander in the late 1960s. Some of these guys came from afar: Tilley from Massachusetts, Dennis from Florida, Jordan from Tennessee, and Schwaner from Ohio. The list of other attendees possessing what we called "Phaeognathus bona fides" is long: Ken Dodd, who worked on the original 1976 listing of the species and did extensive surveys in the late 80s, drove up from Gainesville, Florida. Bruce Means, who documented the reproductive biology of the species, came up from Tallahassee with his wife Kathy. Jodie Smithem, USFWS biologist from Daphne who is writing the revised Recovery Plan, was there. UA professor Jim Parham, who co-authored a skeletochronology paper on Phaeognathus with Dodd, came from Tuscaloosa with his wife Sarah. AU professor Craig Guyer and his former Phaeognathus-studying master's student, Kristen Bakkegaard, now a professor at Samford, were there. Leslie Rissler, JJ's major professor at UA, came with her two youngsters Aiden and Amelia, much to the delight of our seven-year-old, Ava (they were The Three A's). My wife Karan, who's done her share of Phaeognathus catching for an AU study, skillfully handled the BBQ catering and other logistics, and was key to the whole thing going smoothly. Roger Reid produced his very first APT Discovering Alabama program on the Red Hills salamander about 15 years ago (Phaeognathus launched his TV career, we joked), and he was there with his crew to get some supplementary footage. The Nature Conservancy has recently acquired over 4,000 acres of Red Hills lands for Forever Wild, and we were delighted to have Chris Oberholster and Bill Finch of TNC there. Jimmy Bullock and Sandy Hindman of RMS, formerly of Union Camp and International Paper, respectively, were there, and these guys were instrumental in a couple of major Phaeognathus Habitat Conservation Plans in the 1990s. RMS currently owns the type locality and we greatly appreciated their letting us on the property.

We missed a few folks, like Jim Godwin and Margaret Gunzburger, both of whom have considerable "Phaeognathus bona fides" but also had family obligations prohibiting them from making it. Here's Margaret's. Many of us went to Gator Pond afterward and the tale-telling lasted late into the night. Here was the scene the next morning:

Gator Pond Cabin, 19 June 2010. Left to right:
David Dennis, Kathy Steinheimer, Steve Tilley, Ken Dodd, Bruce Means, JJ Apodaca

Great memories were made around here this past week, but there's more to come. It's getting late in the afternoon this Father's Day, and I've promised Ava that Daddy is going to take her to Gator Pond for some swimming, fishing, and listening to frogs. We might even stay in the cabin tonight now that all's quiet. Definitely time to get away from computers for a while...

Smokin'!

When we had The Nature Conservancy's prescribed burning crew at the 70-acre Gator Pond property last March, the wind shifted and they were unable to burn the area in the northwest portion. Well, a few days ago, I got some help from Kent Hanby and Mark Hainds and we got it burned (thanks, guys!). At 2:00, relative humidity was down to a scary 11 percent and the air temperature was 70 degrees F, meaning we really had to be careful. But the objective was to clear out some of the hardwood scrubby regrowth that had encroached following longleaf pine planting three years ago, and it was largely a success. Coincidentally, pilot/photographer Alex Boldog happened to be flying over and today he sent me the above image. Look, it's still smokin'! Open Pond and Yellow Hill Pond to the north are on Forest Service land.

Alabama's Endangered Forever Wild Program

I'm all for preserving green space, not just natural areas but also agricultural lands threatened by sprawl. We need to figure out a way to do both, but limited conservation dollars are almost always best spent on natural functioning ecosystems before they are degraded.

I attended the very first Forever Wild meeting at Oak Mountain State Park back in 1992, after 83% of the voters statewide overwhelmingly approved the program. I was with The Nature Conservancy's Alabama Natural Heritage Program which in those days was housed in the ADCNR State Lands Division, and part of our job was to rank nominated sites for acquisition. I recall the excitement in the air as we looked forward to what the next 20 years (the life of the legislation) would bring. Eighteen years and 209,000 acres later, there's much to be pleased with, but so much more to be done. Frankly, the program has been underfunded to do what has really been needed. As Greg Lien of the Lands Division recently said, "We could purchase land at an identical pace for another 20 years and I know we would not have purchased too much land for the citizens of Alabama."

Greg is so right. Countless precious, unique, and absolutely irreplaceable natural and recreational lands across Alabama are being lost each year to development, intensive silviculture, and agriculture. We are nowhere near where we need to be in preserving land. But with the program coming up for renewal in 2012, politically powerful ALFA is suggesting that Forever Wild's protection of six tenths of one percent of the state is enough, and they want the money that's been funding public land acquisition to go toward paying farmers not to develop their private lands.

I recall then-ADCNR Commissioner Jim Martin telling the attendees of that first Forever Wild meeting that politics would never enter into the way the program was run, and indeed there have been no scandals or misspent funds in these 18 years. But with the program coming up for renewal, politics will determine whether the program continues (or is compromised). Legislators need to hear from their constituents on this critically important issue.

Fortunately, the state's newspapers have not been silent on this:

Mobile Press-Register: Leave Forever Wild Forever Out of Politics

"Legislators who understand the environmental and economic value of preserving land for the public should move quickly in the upcoming session to ensure that no special interests destroy Forever Wild and that voters get the chance to again express their support for its mission."

Montgomery Advertiser: Don't Allow Forever Wild to Lapse

"The Alabama Legislature should renew the Forever Wild program, one of the most successful efforts to protect natural resources for public use in the nation. The program must be reauthorized by the Legislature by 2012 or it will expire."

Anniston Star: Hands Off Forever Wild

"When comparing Alabama's efforts to what other states have done, the state is far behind. Consider Alabama's neighbors. Mississippi has permanently protected nearly 6 percent of its land. Tennessee, 7.25 percent. Georgia, 6.99 percent. Florida, more than 21 percent.

And Alabama? Only more than 4 percent.

We have a long way to go before Forever Wild's mission will be served."

Florence Times Daily: Forever Wild Loses

"Forever Wild has performed admirably since its inception by operating scandal-free and never paying more than the appraised value for property. Tens of thousands of people visit the properties every year. The program is government at its best."

Huntsville Times: Forever Wild Land Preservation Program Faces Sunset

"Forever Wild can't continue if its resources are gutted for other purposes. Forever Wild's allocations off trust fund's interest have also wildly fluctuated with the economy ($400,000 in 2008; $10 million in 2007.) The Alabama Trust Fund should be absolutely the last resort if raiding it would jeopardize this vital public land program."

Bat Heaven

Click image for detail

I didn't think I'd be posting again so soon on bats, but this is a really neat cave I was in yesterday and the day before. It's in Monroe County, Alabama on a 4,000 acre private tract for which I'm doing the conservation easement baseline documentation. The owner casually mentioned there was a cave there, and upon investigation I was pleasantly surprised by its character and contents. I can find no documentation of it (although NSS has another one recorded from elsewhere on the same property), and I suspect it's "new to science," as they say. Local lore says it was once a hiding place for both Indians and Confederate soldiers, and that it contains a lost cache of gold coins guarded by rattlesnakes "as big around as your neck," but no evidence of any of these was seen. The bats visible on the ceiling appear to be Myotis austroriparius, and this is likely a maternity cave for the species. Eric Spadgenske and I conservatively estimated 2,000 animals, but that could be off significantly. I went back in yesterday to get this photo, catching the light as it was reflecting off the small stream to the ceiling. Although bats and caves are often associated with the dark underworld, a friend I shared this with said it looked like "bat heaven," and I have to agree!

As for the lost gold, next time I'm bringing one of these gadgets...


And one final note: I love palindromes. I actually own this book. My daughter is named AVA (and was born in 2002). Well, last time I failed to talk about entering a cave with Eric (mentioned above) and Eva Kristofik (also of USFWS), but you see them briefly in the video. How on earth I failed to remember my all-time favorite at that particular moment I'll never know. But here it is:

EVA, CAN I STAB BATS IN A CAVE?

It would have been so cool if I'd said it at the time, pocketknife in hand, poised menacingly over a bat. See, I would actually be asking a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent named Eva about the legality of stabbing bats right there on the cave wall. Not that I'd ever have done it, of course. But I missed that opportunity and I fear it will never again come up again in regular conversation without seeming somehow contrived. Oh well.

Bat Sampling

Two nights ago I had the privilege of observing/assisting with part of a statewide bat inventory project at a cave less than 20 miles from my home. Keith Hudson, bat expert and one of ADCNR's Nongame Wildlife Program biologists, was directing (that's Keith's voice in this video), and other ADCNR and USFWS biologists were there as well. I'm not mentioning the cave by name because it's on private property, but it's one of the largest and most significant bat caves in Alabama's Coastal Plain. Keith was hoping to get four or five species, but we found just two. Southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius) is the most abundant, and was all we caught in the harp trap. We caught a few hundred, but there had to be many thousands of them in all, although we did not attempt even a ballpark estimate. Eastern pipistrelles (Pipistrellus subflavus) were also present in fair numbers, seen clinging to the cave wall well after most of the other bats had emerged.

The Austbat harp trap Keith uses is an amazing thing. Set up at the cave entrance (or exit, from the bats' perspective), it intercepts emerging bats after dusk, gently plopping them down into a collecting bag. Clear plastic flaps hang down on the inside of the bag, keeping them from crawling out. Incidentally, all bats were released following species ID and determination of sex and reproductive status.

This cave is in an area known as the Lime Hills, a physiographic province just south of and adjacent to the Red Hills. I've been there several times over the years, and it's really a special place. Not only is it perhaps the most important maternity cave in the state for southeastern myotis bats, it is the southernmost known occurrence for pickerel frogs (Rana palustris) in Alabama, and botanists recognize it as one of the southernmost localities for red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis).

RCW Translocation Time Again

Here's what I'll be doing again later this month. This ADCNR video is from the 2007 translocation of 7 endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers from Ft. Benning GA to Enon Plantation near Hurtsboro AL. That was the first time this was ever done on private lands in Alabama, and it's been a huge success. This year we're moving 12. A couple of weeks ago a team of 17 people installed 57 artificial cavity inserts in just a day and a half to get ready for the move.



Without the generosity, support, and conservation ethic of the landowner, Cam Lanier III, obviously this could never happen. Some of the funding is Mr. Lanier's contribution, with the rest in the form of a federal grant through the Alabama Forest Resources Center. Eric Spadgenske (USFWS) is featured, and he's really the brains behind the operation. Also featured is Mark Sasser of ADCNR. I'm in the video, too, but kind of as an "extra" in a couple of scenes. (That's me grabbing the end of the net at the beginning, and installing an insert later on.)

This could be really, really bad.

This August 2 story on introduced Amazonian apple snails from the Mobile Register is chilling. Let's hope it's not too late to stop them this year.

"When wildlife officials realized that baseball-sized Amazonian snails had colonized the main pond in Mobile's Langan Park last year, their worst case scenario involved the giant gastropods escaping into Three Mile Creek.

Now, a year later, that's exactly what's happened."

I have a bad feeling about this.


WKRG.com News

Southeastern Turtles as Political Football

Tonight it's a safe bet Sean Hannity will utter the phrase, "Turtle Tunnel." My good friend Matt Aresco, who worked hard last year to protect endangered Alabama Red-bellied turtles on the Mobile Causeway, has suddenly found himself in the latest news cycle as a result of today's report by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) questioning 100 projects being funded by the stimulus package. Matt's "turtle tunnel" in Florida is featured way up at #5!

For a decade, Matt and other volunteers have maintained a temporary fence along Lake Jackson that keeps thousands of turtles and other wildlife from crossing US Highway 27 near Tallahassee, directing them to large culverts that already exist beneath the road, but a permanent solution has been greatly needed, not only for the turtles but for public safety. Last November, through Matt's tireless efforts, the local regional transportation planning agency unanimously voted to prioritize the proposed Lake Jackson Ecopassage, making it eligible for Transportation Enhancement funds. Later, funds from the stimulus package were directed toward the project.

This looked like a win-win, for turtles, conservationists, motorists, and people needing work. But because it's been re-branded by its detractors as just a "13-foot turtle tunnel," it's a perfect target for politicians who care more about votes than facts. It's all over the news today. My Google search of "Aresco" and "Coburn" just turned up 162 news items, mostly neutral or unfavorable. But Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post gets it right:

"Why did the turtle cross the road?" read the pithy report Coburn issued today. "To get to the other side of the stimulus money."

The Lake Jackson wildlife "ecopassage" got the notoriety being Item No. 5 in Coburn's list of 100 foolish uses for stimulus money.

But it's too bad nobody from his office bothered to talk to Matthew Aresco first.

"It's an easy target," Aresco said. "But when you understand the project and what's at stake, you would support it."

So true. The column goes on describe the real problems of large turtles on a heavily traveled roadway, and then says:

There's a simple and relatively cheap solution: a low wall on the side of the road that funnels the lake creatures to three culverts under the roadway for safe crossing.

Aresco's crusade for this has resulted in a not-for-profit group with a Web site (www.lakejacksonturtles.org), a grant of land from a donor and widespread support from the local community and the state Department of Transportation, which has endorsed the $3.4 million project.

Yet, Coburn's report has painted the project as a fly-by-night government boondoggle, claiming that a temporary fabric fence Aresco put there adequately "saves a lot of our four-legged friends."

Aresco doesn't think so.

"They don't understand the project," he said. "They just put it down without knowing anything about it."

Hang in there, Matt.

Woodpecker Season

Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis), Coosa County, Alabama, May 2007.
Photo by M. Bailey

I'm monitoring red-cockaded woodpeckers ("RCWs") for the tenth consecutive season this spring. Last week I found several nests in Coosa County (near Nick Sharp's coral snake discovery) and one in Chilton county, Alabama. Today I'm headed to Bullock County to remove some flying squirrels from cavities the birds need for nesting and roosting. The RCW has been listed as endangered since 1973 primarily due to habitat loss. Historically found from New Jersey to Texas, its range is now greatly restricted, and about 20,000 birds remain in 11 southern states. More than 90 percent are on public lands such as national forests and military reservations, and these populations are for the most part stable or increasing. Most populations on private lands are decreasing due to lack of proper management and isolation from other populations. In Alabama, the formerly widespread RCW survives today only on four National Forest districts, one area near Lake Mitchell north of Montgomery, and one private holding near Hurtsboro. More on RCWs later; time to hit the road...

Dave Steen's Cool Blog

How have I missed this one? Dave Steen, an Auburn Ph.D. candidate, has started a fantastic blog over at Living Alongside Wildlife. It's a series of essays on wildlife (mostly herps) that are also appearing in some local newspapers. Dave says,

My goals for this blog are to A) help others appreciate and better know wildlife species that tend to have a bad reputation and B) make my research accessible to a general audience.

He's had it running since last month, but I just discovered it this morning. Whoever reads this should definitely check it out. I thoroughly enjoyed the siren-hunting adventure at what must be the legendary (among Alabama herpetologists) Hutto Pond. I'm in a motel in the Tennessee Valley this morning and have no time to read more, but what I've seen is impressive. Looking forward to reading the whole thing, and to future posts.

Great job, Dave!

Vanishing Frogs

Gopher Frog, Escambia County, Alabama

Last night's PBS Nature film, Frogs: The Thin Green Line by Allison Argo (she directs as well as narrates) was stunning, both in cinematography and content. The segment on Karen Lips' research on total frog extirpation in portions of Panama was especially chilling, as the same chytrid fungus may already be having some effect in our region as well. There's a great segment on reintroducing gopher frogs to a Nature Conservancy preserve in Georgia, and my friend John Jensen is featured, along with others. Last September the filmmaker and I had planned to meet at a former gopher frog breeding site in Shelby County, Alabama to show how development has hit frogs hard in some areas, but our schedules didn't work out. After last night's program, it was comforting to raise the window and hear a 6-species chorus of Barking Treefrogs, Green Treefrogs, Gray Treefrogs, Northern Cricket Frogs, Spring Peepers, and Bronze Frogs. If you missed it, you can watch the entire program here.

High Fences Can Kill

You can view this video of this injured, dying deer. (Not suitable for some.)

Recently I was driving along a boundary of a large, well-managed property in east Alabama when a group of 4-5 deer raced across the road in front of me. Several ran straight into a new high fence built by the adjacent landowner. This 8-month-old buck was severely injured and was dead within minutes. These deer were on the outside, following their traditional escape route to cover. I have also seen a doe inside a high fence enclosure injure her face by repeatedly leaping into a fence, seemingly not understanding that it was impenetrable.

These so-called "high fence operations" are cropping up all over the landscape, and should never, in my opinion, have been permitted by state conservation agencies. Wealthy landowners who want to manage trophy bucks love them, but the practice is viewed by many hunters as unethical, it puts publicly-owned wildlife into private control, and, as seen here, it can kill wildlife.

The Wildlife Society's position statement on high fence ungulate enclosures can be found here (pdf).

Ivorybill Photo Hoax

Anybody can do this.

For the past couple of weeks there's been some buzz on certain blogs about a blurry "possible" ivorybill woodpecker color photo taken in 2007 by Steve Sheridan (the image above is not it.) All links to that photo are now down, as far as I can tell. It was supposedly reviewed by a team of 20 experts for 18 months, and apparently nobody concluded (or even seriously suspected?) it was faked. There were elements to it that I thought looked odd, but of course hindsight is 20-20, and I was certainly intrigued, and I really hoped it was legitimate. Well, the cat's out of the bag, and apparently Sheridan has confessed. I hope (OK, even suspect) there are still ivorybills out there, but this kind of behavior from an individual previously regarded as a serious searcher only lessens hopes. An anonymous commenter to a recent Ivorybills LiVE! blog post (before the hoax was revealed) pretty much echoes my feelings on this:

"Perhaps some people enjoyed this exercise, but I found it discouraging. I believe the IBWO is out there because my BS-detector told me to trust some of the strangers who said they saw it. This search has been a big preoccupation of mine for years. However, a developing parallel between this and Bigfoot (which I don't believe exists) is a sub-culture that includes expert ambiguous evidence analysts on the internet with a never-ending supply of ambiguous “evidence” to analyze. It's creepy, and it makes me wonder if I'm really a chump for spending the time, money and energy I have on this search."

Sheridan will forever be remembered by ivorybill buffs as a fraud. The last putative color photo of the bird seriously put forward was taken in Louisiana by Fielding Lewis in 1971, and can be viewed here (.pdf). Lewis was accused by some of faking this photo, but he maintained until his dying day that it was legitimate.

ADDENDUM: Sheridan has apologized here, but the damage is done. Now what will happen if/when someone comes forth with "good" photo evidence? Forget about still photos. Even a National Geographic documentary-quality video of adult ivorybills feeding young at the nest cavity will be doubted by some, because a skilled CGI tech can realistically simulate anything these days. Look at this:

Burn Video

Just posted this video of yesterday's burn and some from this morning: